Discussion at Linux Foundation Japan Symposium

[Masami Hiramatsu]

Hi Roland,

Roland McGrath wrote:
>> By the way, if the development will take more than two years, it might be
>> belated, at last.
> 
> I don't think I understood this sentence.  I certainly would be much
> happier if we'd embarked on this work two years ago, but we didn't,
> and we have yet to really begin.  The idea that it could take
> anything like two years of actual development on this to produce
> results seems just ludicrous to me, if that's what you meant.
> Unless the effort goes horribly awry, I'll know a great deal more
> concrete about it in a month, and the hope going in is to have quite
> a lot of it done in two months.

Would you mean you can release a usable prototype in two months
if no trouble? Great! If so, I think it's enough short for us and kernel
developers to use the tool.

>> Unfortunately, we are in a severe situation. I don't mean
>> that you give up the effort. Instead of that, I recommend you to run the
>> project with target users (for example, kernel developers and systemtap
>> developers), do rapid prototyping and embrace their feedbacks. It could
>> take more time, but you can continue to attract users and give us hope!
> 
> I don't know what it means to "run the project with target users".

Sorry about confusing you.
I just mean that we'd better notify users who are suffered from
huge debuginfo that there is a plan to make a tool which can compress
the debuginfo (and they can use it soon).
Unless that, we will waste time on finding another way to solve this
issue :(.

> The actual tool development is something for DWARF and toolchain
> experts to do, and I don't expect kernel developers to devote their
> time to that just because they would benefit from the deployment of
> such tools (as will many other kinds of developers--this is not
> solely for the benefit of systemtap).

Indeed, and at least there are some people who will receive benefit
from that tool.

>  Of course the project is open
> to everyone who wants to contribute, and of course development of
> new tools will be driven by the concerns of their potential users.

Sure, and that's a good news for "Frustrated" systemtap users.

Thank you for your work!

-- 
Masami Hiramatsu

Software Engineer
Hitachi Computer Products (America) Inc.
Software Solutions Division

e-mail: mhiramat@redhat.com